Wireless subscriber loyalty system and method

ABSTRACT

A system and method are disclosed for providing a complete architectural and procedural solution to wireless subscriber loyalty issues. A flexible promotion creation environment allows mobile phone operators to rapidly create and deploy various incentive programs and other such loyalty schemes; together with a data mining and profiling method for tracking, monitoring and analysing subscriber (or aggregate) usage information associated with given promotions. The proposed data mining and profiling method purposely incents specific subscriber behaviors by triggering a point-based reward scheme based on the dynamic screening of event records which are correlated with incented behaviors. Wherein a threshold is assigned based on usage information for a particular promotion; upon realization of which, the subscriber is, immediately notified of the reward through a plurality of means including e-mail, voice notification and by way of Short Message Service (SMS) at their wireless handset.

PRIORITY CLAIM

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.10/294,651, filed Nov. 15, 2002, the contents of which are incorporatedherein by reference.

BACKGROUND ART

Securing new clientele while sustaining the approval and satisfaction ofexisting ones is perhaps a feature common to most, if not all businessconcerns. In seeking these ends most businesses implement variouscustomer loyalty and reward programs, of which, frequent flyer mileswould arguably be the most well-known. The telecommunications industryis no different. Mobile subscribers for instance are notorious forindiscriminately switching between mobile phone operators, with littleregard as to brand or service loyalty. The latter must therefore learnto effectively manage and moderate such churn.

As loyalty, and related issues, remain crucial to the survival oftelecommunications companies and service providers it seems unsurprisingthen that the prior art should disclose some existing inventionsdirected to such ends. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 6,049,599 toMcCausland, et al., entitled Churn Amelioration System and Methodtherefore, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,471 to Dahm et al., entitled OnlineChurn Reduction and Loyalty System, disclose art relevant solely to theprediction of churn. However, the subscriber data mining and profilingmethods disclosed herein are for the most part not directed to theprediction of chum and remain materially unique. Indeed, it is an objectof our present invention to disclose a complete system and architecturefor the reduction of churn through the implementation of various loyaltyschemes and promotions coupled with immediate subscriber notification ofrewards thereof.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,052,447 to Golden et al., entitled Method and apparatusfor aggregating customer information for a telecommunications system,discloses art directed towards applying discounts and/or promotions tocalls which meet identified patterns or thresholds. Said patterns andthe means used to identity and appraise them remain limited to calltime, cost, number of calls, destination and/or geographic region. Theart of our invention is not tied to any particular call variables, andindeed the value of the Promotion Creation Environment (PCE) remains inits bespoke and tailor-able nature. Additionally, our invention isdirected to wireless subscriber loyalty issues and the benefitsproviding near real-time notification of rewards and other incentedbehaviour(s).

U.K. Patent No. 2,367,445 to Mayes et al., entitled Rewarding a Customerfor Call Usage, presents a system for rewarding and penalising customersfor call usage across a telecommunications network. However the artdetailed therein does not intimate any special data mining and profilingmethod, nor a novel loyalty promotion creation environment, or for thatmatter, any immediate method for subscriber reward notification.

Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,991,376 to Hennessy, et al., entitledSubscriber Reward Method, discloses a technique for providing aninstantaneous reward to a communications subscriber. The method thereinnevertheless remains particular to inter-exchange carriers, localservice providers, and/or internet service providers.

REFERENCES CITED: U.S. Pat. No. 6,301,471 October 2001 Dahm et al.455/405 U.S. Pat. No. 6,052,447 April 2000 Golden et al. 379/114.1 U.S.Pat. No. 6,049,599 April 2000 McCausland 379/111 et al. U.S. Pat. No.5,991,376 November 1999 Hennessy et al. 379/114.1 Foreign Patent April2002 GB. Document(s) 2367445

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates generally to wireless communications andservices; and more specifically, details a complete framework for themanagement and implementation of wireless subscriber loyalty programsand rewards.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Indeed, with the prior art particularly silent on the issue of wirelesssubscriber loyalty, the invention of present remains avant-garde interms of its scope and application. Now, with typical loyalty-typepromotions there usually requires something in the order of two to sixmonths to develop and test the software and related technicalarchitecture necessary for its implementation. However, it remains anaspect of the present invention to disclose a novel promotion creationenvironment which compresses the marketing-to-launch cycle well beyondthe existing art (one day to a week at most). By means of graphical userinterface (GUI), the mobile phone operator is presented with a systemfor autonomous promotion definition, which utilizes various triggerdefinitions, conditions and thresholds for the particular behaviourbeing incented.

Another aspect of the present invention discloses a data mining andprofiling method which incents specific subscriber behaviours bytriggering a point-based reward scheme based on the dynamic screening ofevent records which are correlated with incented behaviors.Specifically, the underlying algorithm gathers information viaoperational measurements and/or event detail records (EDRs) from varioussources within the carrier's network and dynamically associates a pointbased reward if certain triggering criteria are met. The triggeringcriteria may be based on the number of events (weighted by importance)and chronologically delimited.

Furthermore, traditional subscriber profiling has traditionally been twodimensional in that a set of parameters was stored for each subscriberand used in single manner by one or more applications. A subscribercould have many different profiles but the profiles would be intended toonly be used in one way. In addressing these deficiencies of the art, anew user profiling method is proposed in order to proactively define amultidimensional subscriber state which will include aspects such as thesubscriber's service profile as a function of time, the subscriber'susage patterns, the user's preferences for the active acquisition ofdata (e.g. stock info, weather etc.) as a function of time, and thesubscriber's preference's for the active dissemination of data (e.g.current location, ability to chat etc.) as a function of time.

For example, in the case of a carrier which wishes to incent the use ofprepaid wireless services, the loyalty & rewards algorithm may be set toallocate a 1DO-point reward on the basis of a $50 net recharge within a30 day time window. The data mining and profiling engine would acquireand maintain a history of recharge activities for a specified grouping(e.g. all) of its subscribers. In particular, the value and date of eachrecharge over a suitable chronological window would be retained for eachsubscriber and utilized to determine if the specified trigger criteriahas been met. Note that multiple recharge/usage activities may meet thetrigger requirements (e.g. 5×$10 or 1×$50 recharge activities within 30days). Where the trigger criteria are satisfied, a trigger notificationis provided to the loyalty application which correlates the triggerevent with a pre-defined point allocation.

In alternate embodiments, multiple trigger criteria could be establishedover a given event (chronological) window in that the same underlyingevent records may lead to several trigger criteria being met. In stillfurther embodiments, the loyalty application may be implemented with amultiplicity of means for dealing with concurrent trigger events. Thedata mining and profiling method may for instance, (i) aggregate thepoints associated with each trigger over a given event window; (ii)allocate the points in a sequential (chronological) manner (a giventrigger event would reset the applicable chronological window forsubsequent trigger events to a point which begins after the event whichinitiated the earlier trigger); or (iii) select the trigger event withthe minimum or maximum point value at the carrier's discretion.

Given then the present embodiment, upon creation of a promotion, one ormore monitors would be applied to a subscriber's account, one or moretriggers would be set for certain promotion criteria (date, balance ofaccount) and one or more actions would be associated with each trigger.Where specified criteria are met, the monitors would be triggered andthe corresponding actions would take place. An action can,non-exhaustively, range from an increment in a subscriber's account,modification of a subscriber's prepaid service rate plan or a ShortMessage Service (SMS) notification to the subscriber.

According to yet another aspect of the present invention, subscribersare immediately notified of their promotional reward through a pluralityof systems, including e-mail, voice notification and by way of ShortMessage Service (SMS) at their wireless handset. Considering thatexisting promotional applications generate reports on a nightly, weeklyor even monthly basis; it must be questioned whether the resultingoutput is meaningful in the least considering the time delay between thesubscriber activity and the actual delivery of the reward notificationto the subscriber.

Indeed, it may take up to a month to deliver the reward based on arecharge that happened 30 days ago. That is, the efficacy of existingloyalty applications are diminished as the subscriber does not correlatethe receipt of the reward with the underlying incented behavior.

These features and other such advantages of the present invention shallbecome readily apparent from the following description and accompanyingdrawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a typical, non-limiting embodiment of the systemlevel architecture employed in the disclosure of present;

FIG. 2 represents an illustrative block diagram of the PromotionCreation Environment (PCE) detailing the flexible graphical userinterface (GUI) for the rapid creation of promotions;

FIG. 3 is an illustrative block diagram detailing the improved datamining and profiling methods for loyalty and related reward schemes, intandem with the threshold realization facets and event/promotionnotification aspects of the present art.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

With reference to FIG. 1, subscriber and operator-initiated transactionsgenerate transaction records and/or real-time notifications of the eventin question; be they EDR streams 101, ASP reports 102 and/orProvisioning requests 103.

At the corresponding interface, SCP OAM interface 101A, New SubscriberProvisioning interface (ASP) 102A, or Promotion Provisioning interface103A, the Wireless Subscriber Loyalty System poller and translator 110interfaces poll records from transaction record source locations andtransforms said data into the Wireless Subscriber LoyaltySystem-standard data encoding format.

The Wireless Subscriber Loyalty System-standard encoded data is thenprocessed by the Promotion Engine (PE) 120 in an attempt to identify ifany said promotions are in fact associated with the subscriber inquestion 140 (usually based upon, in the preferred embodiment, saidsubscriber's Identifier(s) which may include the subscriber's MobileStation Integrated Services Digital Network Number (MSISDN) or MobileDirectory Number (MDN) or Network Address Identifier (NAI), to retrievethe promotion details 130. Those skilled in the art shall recognize thata variety of addressing schemes may be utilized as a form ofsubscription identification without diluting the intent and scope of thepresent invention.

For transactions which are associated with a promotion and satisfy allpromotion conditions (e.g. called address not equal to *611), thesubscriber profile 140 is updated based on the promotion profile 130 asdefined in the Promotion Creation Environment (detailed further in FIG.2).

In the event that a subscriber profile 140 update causes a promotionmonitor threshold to be breached (detailed further in FIG. 3), theactions associated with the monitor are queued in the action queuehandler with the corresponding action execution date (e.g. immediate,absolute date, relative date) 150. Upon action execution date, theaction queue 150 forwards the action data to the appropriate actionhandler.

FIG. 2 now, for the sake of simplicity, details in a word diagram theprocess flows concerned in the creation of promotions by means of agraphical user interface (GUI). At 201 the administrator in questionlogs into the representative Promotion Creation Environment (PCE) anddefines the promotion name and relevant base details 202 (e.g. privateversus promotion designation).

The procedural flow at 203 concerns the definition of various promotionmonitors. Said monitors may include, incoming traffic characteristics203A (e.g. event record type), conditions that must be satisfied forthis monitor 203B (e.g. called address=*611), actions to perform uponcondition satisfaction 203C (e.g. increment minutes used counter),threshold values set for actions to be triggered 203D (e.g. minutes usedequal 1000), and/or actions performed (and execution time) uponthreshold triggering 203E (e.g. send SMS). The monitors, 203A, 203B203C, 203D and 203E remain representative and non-limiting in theirscope.

At 204, the promotional dependencies (if any) are defined to indicateany promotions co-existence restrictions. At 205, global actions (ifany) are defined and their requisite scheduled execution time (s). Thepromotion is then saved 206, stored in the promotion database (130 inFIG. 1); and subsequently installed 207. Said promotion is now “live.”

Now in reference to FIG. 3 which details the subscriber profiling 310and reward mechanisms 302 for the disclosed Wireless Subscriber LoyaltySystem and Method. Indeed, whenever said subscriber initiates atransaction an event record/trigger is generated 310 which issubsequently polled by the wireless subscriber loyalty system interface320 and transformed into the Wireless Subscriber Loyalty System-standarddata encoding format 320A.

The Wireless Subscriber Loyalty promotion engine then processes the dataof 320A at 330; the subscriber profile is queried to retrieve allapplicable promotions 340. The said subscriber profile is then updatedbased on the promotion mapping fields (detailed in FIG. 2) 350.

Upon promotion threshold realization, the reward mechanism of thepresent art is invoked 302. Upon invoking a promotion action 370, saidaction(s) are inserted into the action queue with the execution time (inthe preferred embodiment) 380. The action(s) are popped from the formeraction queue and sent to the action handler 390, for delivery/routing asappropriate.

1. Apparatus for creating and implementing a subscriber promotionalreward scheme, the apparatus comprising: a computer-based promotionengine configured to receive data from a computer-based interfaceconnectable with said computer-based promotion engine, saidcomputer-based interface configured to receive said data representingevents relative to a subscriber; said computer-based promotion enginefurther configured to transmit requests to a computer-based subscriberprofile database connectable with said computer-based promotion engine,said computer-based subscriber profile database configured to maintain asubscriber profile relative to said subscriber, said requests beingrequests for subscriber profile data stored in said subscriber profilebased on a subscriber identifier; said computer-based promotion enginefurther configured to receive responses to said requests; saidcomputer-based promotion engine further configured to transmit furtherrequests to a computer-based promotion profile database connectable withsaid computer-based promotion engine, said computer-based promotionprofile database configured to maintain configurable promotion monitors;said further requests being requests for promotion monitorscorresponding to said events and based on said subscriber identifier andsaid events; said computer-based promotion engine further configured toreceive responses to said further requests; said computer-basedpromotion engine configured to update said subscriber profile data basedon said promotion monitors and said subscriber profile data; saidcomputer-based promotion engine further configured to store an update tosaid subscriber profile data on said computer-based subscriber profiledatabase.
 2. The apparatus of claim 1, said computer-based promotionengine being configured to receive standardized data from saidcomputer-based interface, said computer-based interface configured toreceive said data representing events relative to a subscriber and totransform said data into said standardized data.
 3. The apparatus ofclaim 1, said computer-based promotion engine being further configuredto determine if a promotion monitor threshold has been reached for saidsubscriber and to forward instructions to an action queue handlerconnectable to said computer-based promotion engine for a rewardmechanism in fulfillment of a promotion.
 4. The apparatus of claim 1,wherein said promotional reward scheme is a subscriber loyalty program.5. The apparatus of claim 1, wherein said data representing eventscomprises event detail record (EDR) streams.
 6. The apparatus of claim5, wherein said computer-based interface is a Service Control Point(“SCP”) Operations Administration Maintenance (“DAM”) interface.
 7. Theapparatus of claim 1, wherein said data representing events comprises aprovisioning request.
 8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein saidinterface is a promotion provisioning interface.
 9. The apparatus ofclaim 1, wherein said promotion monitors are based on one or more of:time usage by said subscriber; usage patterns of said subscriber; userpreferences for acquisition of active data as a function of time; andthe subscriber's preferences for the active dissemination of data as afunction of time.
 10. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein said active datais based on stock information or weather information.
 11. The apparatusof claim 9, wherein said subscriber's preferences for the activedissemination of data is based on current location of said subscriberand an ability of said subscriber to utilize chat services.
 12. Theapparatus of claim 1, wherein said promotion monitors include one ormore of: incoming traffic characteristics; excluded telephone numbers;actions to perform upon condition satisfaction; threshold values set foractions to be triggered; actions to be performed on reaching ofthreshold values.
 13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein said incomingtraffic characteristics is derived from an event record type.
 14. Theapparatus of claim 12, wherein said excluded telephone numbers include*611.
 15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein said threshold values setfor actions is an aggregate value of time or an aggregate number oftransactions.
 16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein said actionincludes sending a short message service SMS message.
 17. The apparatusof claim 1, said computer-based promotion engine being furtherconfigured to receive commands for creating, modifying, deleting, and/orupdating said promotion monitors from a computer-based graphical userinterface connectable with said computer-based promotion engine.
 18. Theapparatus of claim 1, wherein said promotion profile database is furtherconfigured to maintain a set of promotion dependency definitionsrespective to each promotion monitor; said promotion dependencydefinitions including promotion monitor dependencies on at least oneother promotional reward scheme.
 19. The apparatus of claim 1, whereinsaid computer-based promotion profile database is further configured tomaintain a set of global action definitions respective to each promotionmonitor.
 20. A method for creating and implementing a subscriberpromotional reward scheme at a computer-based promotion engine, themethod comprising: receiving data from a computer-based interface, saidcomputer-based interface configured to receive said data representingevents relative to a subscriber; transmitting requests to acomputer-based subscriber profile database, said computer-basedsubscriber profile database configured to maintain a subscriber profilerelative to said subscriber, said requests being requests for subscriberprofile data stored in said subscriber profile based on a subscriberidentifier; receiving responses to said requests from saidcomputer-based subscriber profile database; transmitting furtherrequests to a computer-based promotion profile database, saidcomputer-based promotion profile database configured to maintainconfigurable promotion monitors; said further requests being requestsfor promotion monitors corresponding to said events and based on saidsubscriber identifier and said events; receiving responses to saidfurther requests from said computer-based promotion profile database;updating said subscriber profile data based on said promotion monitorsand said subscriber profile data; storing an update to said subscriberprofile data on said computer-based subscriber profile database.
 21. Themethod of claim 20, further comprising: determining if a promotionmonitor threshold has been reached for said subscriber; and, forwardinginstructions to an action queue handler for a reward mechanism infulfillment of a promotion.
 22. The method of claim 20, wherein saidpromotional reward scheme is a subscriber loyalty program.
 23. Themethod of claim 20, wherein said data representing events comprisesevent detail record (EDR) streams.
 24. The method of claim 23, whereinsaid computer-based interface is a Service Control Point (“SCP”)Operations Administration Maintenance (“DAM”) interface.
 25. The methodof claim 20, wherein said data representing events comprises aprovisioning request.
 26. The method of claim 25, wherein said interfaceis a promotion provisioning interface.
 27. The method of claim 20,wherein said promotion monitors are based on one or more of: time usageby said subscriber; usage patterns of said subscriber; user preferencesfor acquisition of active data as a function of time; and thesubscriber's preferences for the active dissemination of data as afunction of time.
 28. The method of claim 27, wherein said active datais based on stock information or weather information.
 29. The method ofclaim 27, wherein said subscriber's preferences for the activedissemination of data is based on current location of said subscriberand an ability of said subscriber to utilize chat services.
 30. Themethod of claim 20, wherein said promotion monitors include one or moreof: incoming traffic characteristics; excluded telephone numbers;actions to perform upon condition satisfaction; threshold values set foractions to be triggered; actions to be performed on reaching ofthreshold values.
 31. The method of claim 30, wherein said incomingtraffic characteristics is derived from an event record type.
 32. Themethod of claim 30, wherein said excluded telephone numbers include*611.
 33. The method of claim 32, wherein said threshold values set foractions is an aggregate value of time or an aggregate number oftransactions.
 34. The method of claim 30, wherein said action includessending a short message service SMS message.
 35. The method of claim 20,further comprising: receiving commands for creating, modifying,deleting, and/or updating said promotion monitors from a computer-basedgraphical user interface.
 36. The method of claim 20, wherein saidpromotion profile database is further configured to maintain a set ofpromotion dependency definitions respective to each promotion monitor;said promotion dependency definitions including promotion monitordependencies on at least one other promotional reward scheme.
 37. Themethod of claim 20, wherein said computer-based promotion profiledatabase is further configured to maintain a set of global actiondefinitions respective to each promotion monitor.
 38. The method ofclaim 20, wherein receiving data from said computer-based interfacecomprises receiving standardized data from said computer-basedinterface, said computer-based interface configured to receive said datarepresenting events relative to a subscriber and to transform said datainto said standardized data.